A man from North-West London has been jailed for six months, after admitting to fraudulently filming Hollywood movies at a Vue cinema and then distributing the wares illegally online.
Emmanuel Nimley, 22, of Lincoln Road in Harrow, used his iPhone to take fuzzy recordings of The Crazies, Alice In Wonderland and The Green Zone …

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Vue Entertainment

yes.. for breaking the law.

I have no problem with this at all and I don't see how you possibly could either. Regardless of what you think of pirating movies harming/not harming the movie companies, this is definitely harming Vue as it could potentially stop people going to the cinema to watch those films and if they aren't active in combatting piracy, the film companies might not sell them the films to show in the first place harming them further.

Classic

OTT

This sentence seems extremely OTT. A jail term for what has got to be lousy vids? Just who would want to watch such low-quality junk in the first place? From the judge's comments, you'd think he murdered a dozen people!

I just used

No specific charge?

"no specific legislation that can be used in a charge such as the one against Nimley"

Odd that since it clearly says they are using the Fraud act. This would seem to be the perfect piece of legislation as I'm quite sure that deliberately recording the on-screen image with the intent to pass the result on to people knowing that you have no legal right to do so must cover just about every bullet point in the act. I suspect that it breaches the T&Cs of the ticket purchase at the cinema too which could bring it in under the Theft Act 'pecuniary advantage' bit. If you are going in with the intent of breaking the law then you may even fall into Trespass even if you have purchased a ticket. Etc etc etc

All in all I would imagine that it is not that there is no existing legislation so much as the interested parties want their own special legislation that they can have stretched to fit anything else they think of regardless of the original intent.

This country is fucked!

Should he not get a medal?

Surely a fuzzy facsimile is art not theft.

Or more likely a warning about the quality of the latest megacorp crap to be inflicted on the entertainment seeking public. Anyone watching two minutes of these films will avoid the multiplex, not because they have watched the whole thing but because they realise the waste of time that would be.

Why oh why do we need titles?

"Your action was a deliberate cheat on the film companies and the film industry. Fraudulently making and distribution of copies for whatever purpose and whatever quality has the effect of depriving the film industry of revenue."

The reason it deprives the film industry of money is because you get a chance to see what a pile of toss something is before you get a chance to pay for it.

I think cinemas should charge on exit, so if the film is good enough that you can bear to sit through the whole thing, you pay the full seat price. If however, it is a pile of crap and you can only tolerate a percentage of the running time, you pay for the percentage of the film you can be arsed to watch. The last 1/2 hour or so would have to be charged at full price I suppose.

It would mean box office takings actually reflect whether people liked the film rather than how many were suckered into the cinema to be abused by vacuous storylines and cliched, formula production.

It's been said a thousand times before but.... Every single CD, DVD and Blu-Ray I own has first been pirated (and very very occasionally seen at the cinema) before I went and bought them.

I no longer pirate music at all, and consequently no longer buy any either except occasionally when a mate bungs me a copy of a cd & I like it.

I don't think they should encourage piracy, but they should take a more pragmatic approach. Not every pirated copy is a lost sale and piracy can even generate sales when the quality of the product is high.

cinema refunds

"I think cinemas should charge on exit, so if the film is good enough that you can bear to sit through the whole thing, you pay the full seat price. If however, it is a pile of crap and you can only tolerate a percentage of the running time, you pay for the percentage of the film you can be arsed to watch."

Someone I know once walked out of a cinema part way through a particularly crap film and demanded his money back. The manager was obliged to comply because it turns out that if you leave before halfway through the film you are entitled to a full refund under British law.

feck!

Way over the top

I could understand the sentence if he had _sold_ copies illegally rather than just shared them because he could. But I think this sentence will do the copyright extremists no good at all, by making Emmanual into a martyr, and making themselves even more disliked than they previously were. A hundred hours community service and a small fine might have been appropriate. As to asking us to spy on our neighbours in case they are secretly filming when I go to the flics, frankly the idea makes me feel sick.

Good grief

context dear boy

Context is everything.

Each type of crime has a range of sentencing options detailed by sentencing guidelines. Unless you are privy to all the aggravating and mitigating facts in this crime and any you are comparing it to, you really are sounding more like the Daily Wail than you would like.

No more laws please

... complained that the UK government lags ... no specific legislation that can be used in a charge ...

That would be a fair comment if it wasn't for the fact that people can obviously be prosecuted using existing laws, so no new law needed. Just like there is no specific law against punching someone in the right eye using your left fist while standing on one leg, because it isn't needed.

Laws?

Fraud?

I remember reading about the trial on el reg a few weeks ago, and i wondered 'how could this be fraud?' I never thought this would end with a custodial sentence though. Scary. Could anyone with a little more legal knowledge than my humble self explain how making a dodgy copy of a film and putting on streaming site is fraud?

Six months?

Yes, he should be punished. He knew what he was doing is against the law.

But he made no money out of it. It's quite likely that the film company lost no money out of it. A few sad people watched a fuzzy copy of the movie, and would almost certainly have not bothered to see it at all if it had not been free on the internet.

He deserves prison

Well done sir

Indeed

"Your action was a deliberate cheat on the film companies and the film industry. Fraudulently making and distribution of copies for whatever purpose and whatever quality has the effect of depriving the film industry of revenue."

Looking at the list of absolute fecking drivel at my local cinema, I'd be more concerned about subjecting today's youth to a diet of utter rubbish guaranteed to mess them up! Alice in Wonderland? Have shufty on Amazon and pick up a copy of the book for a quid and enjoy it far more! Even better find a PDF, I believe it's public domain now, so you should be entitled to read it for free!

all this....

why arrest him

OK so now when this guy gets out and tries to get a job ,& "CAN NOT" because when the companies see he was incarcerated for 6 months chances are he wont get the job . So did the judge really do anyone any justice in this case ? NO he ruins this kids life by putting a mark on his record that will be there for the rest of this kids life essentially basically making this kid a criminal for the rest of his life. I know the kid did it to himself the judge didn't do it to him . However the judge didn't have to put him in jail , What is gained by this . save jail for the murderers rapists and child molesters and the likes of those scum bags . Not some kid that paid his own way to see a movie then recoded it on his phone. He couldn't have gotten the entire movie on his phone. Thats just to much space for an I phone to handle "I Think". . I feel the judge was wrong because now this kid, wont be able to get a job I would expect him to do more of what he was convicted of if not out of spite then for money . Even though he didn't make any money the first time . He may now need to do it for the money "with a better quality camera I hope "!!, This judge should have used his noggin more in this case dont get me wrong , the kid broke the law he needs to be punished . i think community services would have worked a lot better for every one involved. Say have him clean the theater for 6 months every weekend & Donate his pay to charity of the the Movie companies choice. Or sentence him to 400 hours of teaching the elderly how to use a PC. anything like that . I bet if this kid broke into some ladies house rapped and robbed her he wouldn't have gotten this much jail time . It seems our government is more concern with protecting the Big Businesses than it is in protecting US people Bottom line. In the end We the people are going to end up picking up the tab for this kids life all because of one Judges bad decision!!! http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/fail_32.png

Good news! Another rogue off the seats....

Fraud?

Copyright infringement, okay.

But how is it "fraud"? He was giving the videos away. They were bootlegs and everyone knew that. So there was no deception.

The only mystery to me is why anyone would waste their time watching a videocammed movie, complete with background chatter, rustling sweet packets, fuzzy images... I've picked up a few in used DVD markets and never spent more than a minute watching them before ejecting and throwing it away. If you want a bootleg, wait a couple of weeks at most and get the Russian release.

These videos aren't watched by anyone instead of buying the movie; it's just so people can say they were "first" to upload a video or make it available, and downloaders can get a taste of a new movie.